(kǎo): to roast, to bake

(kǎo) is a Chinese character meaning “to roast, to bake.” Classified as HSK Level 4 (HSK 3.0 Standard, CLEC 2022), it is composed of (semantic) and (phonetic). It ranks #2510 in character frequency (SUBTLEX-CH corpus).

Etymologically derived, fire. Its radical form (fire) appears in many related characters such as (huǒ, fire), (dēng, lamp, light), (yān, smoke).

Native pronunciation

Definitions

  1. to roast, to bake

Etymology & Origin

pictophoneticfire

Decomposition: ⿰火考 (layout: left-right)

Stroke Order

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Practice writing with real-time feedback — trace each stroke in the correct order and build muscle memory in the HanziFeed app.

Words & Compounds

HSK Vocabulary with

WordPinyinMeaningHSK
nounshāo kǎobarbecue5

Common Compounds

WordPinyinMeaning
kǎo ròuto barbecue meat
kǎo xiāngoven
kǎo lúoven
hōng kǎoto roast
kǎo huǒto warm oneself at a fire
kǎo yāroast duck
kǎo yānflue-cured tobacco
kǎo miàn bāo jītoaster
kǎo miàn bāoto toast bread
tǔ ěr qí xuán zhuǎn kǎo ròuTurkish döner kebab
xiàn kǎofreshly baked
kǎo diàndiathermia (medical treatment involving local heating of body tissues with electric current)
xuán zhuǎn kǎo ròudöner kebab
kǎo fángdrying room
běi jīng kǎo yāPeking Duck
33
Total compounds
64
As first character
21
As last character
15
As middle character

appears in 33 compound words: 64 as the first character, 21 as the last, and 15 in a middle position. Compound statistics computed from SUBTLEX-CH and HSK 3.0 vocabulary data.

Strongest Collocations

Characters that most frequently co-occur with in natural Chinese text, ranked by NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information) — a statistical measure of association strength.

hōng
0.7134,884 co-occurrences
ròu
0.5899,376 co-occurrences
shāo
0.5543,329 co-occurrences
0.5441,158 co-occurrences
0.5151,152 co-occurrences
xiāng
0.5002,602 co-occurrences
jiān
0.495570 co-occurrences
bèi
0.479276 co-occurrences
bǐng
0.478594 co-occurrences
shǔ
0.477606 co-occurrences

Idioms & Chengyu (1)

kǎomiànbāojīHSK 4+

toaster

noun

Example Sentences

AI-Generated

这家烧店的羊肉串很受欢迎,每天晚上都要排队等位。

Zhè jiā shāokāo diàn de yángròu chuàn hěn shòu huānyíng, měitiān wǎnshang dōu yào páiduì děng wèi.

The lamb skewers at this BBQ restaurant are very popular, and people have to wait in line for a table every evening.

SmzdmMar 2026

为什么全中国的医院门口,都有一个红薯摊?卖红薯真能赚钱?#奇怪的知识 ...

wéi shén má quán zhōng guó de yī yuàn mén kǒu , dōu yǒu yī gè kǎo hóng shǔ tān ? mài kǎo hóng shǔ zhēn néng zhuàn qián ? qí guài de zhī shí . . .

Why is there a roasted sweet potato stand outside every hospital in China? Is selling roasted sweet potatoes really profitable? #WeirdFacts ...

InvestingMar 2026

“只有100多家还在酒”!贵州仁怀酱酒“洗牌”,茅台镇余氏兄...

zhī yǒu 1 0 0 duō jiā hái zài kǎo jiǔ ! guì zhōu rén huái jiàng jiǔ xǐ pái , máo tái zhèn yú shì xiōng . . .

"Only about 100 distilleries are still producing liquor"! A shake-up in Guizhou's Renhuai soy-sauce-flavored liquor industry; the Yu brothers of Maotai Town...

DigitimesMar 2026

...I五层蛋糕谁少一层? 中国产业链中段恐仅熟一半

. . . I wǔ céng dàn gāo shéi shǎo yī céng ? zhōng guó chǎn yè liàn zhōng duàn kǒng jǐn kǎo shú yī bàn

...Which layer is missing from this five-layer cake? China’s midstream industrial chain may only be half-baked.

三立新聞網Feb 2026

过年“蚵吃到饱”10人吐泻 业者说话了

guò nián kǎo 蚵 chī dào bǎo 1 0 rén tǔ xiè yè zhě shuō huà le

New Year's "all-you-can-eat oysters" 10 people vomited and diarrhea The operator spoke

百度新闻Feb 2026

盘核桃、叠衣服、穿肠,银河通用春晚机器人是怎么“..

pán hé táo dié yī fú chuān kǎo cháng , yín hé tōng yòng chūn wǎn jī qì rén shì zěn má . .

Cracking walnuts, folding clothes, threading sausages—how does the Galaxy Universal Spring Festival Gala robot do it?

Tatoeba

汤姆了些巧克力脆饼。

Tāngmǔ kǎo le xiē qiǎokèlì cuì bǐng.

Tom baked some chocolate chip cookies.

Tatoeba

箱预热至华氏 300 度。

Jiāng kǎoxiāng yùrè zhì Huáshì 300 dù.

Preheat the oven to 300° Fahrenheit.

Tatoeba

你想吃几串羊肉?

Nǐ xiǎng chī jǐ chuàn kǎo yángròu?

How many kebabs will you have?

Tatoeba

我有好久都没面包了。要不今天点儿?

Wǒ yǒu hǎojiǔ dōu méi kǎomiànbāo le. yàobù jīntiān kǎo diǎnr?

I haven't baked bread in a long time. How about we bake a little today?

Character Family

Homophones — Characters pronounced kǎo

Frequently Asked Questions

What does 烤 (kǎo) mean in Chinese?
烤 (kǎo) primarily means "to roast, to bake." It is classified as HSK Level 4, making it an upper-intermediate character. It ranks #2510 in character frequency.
How many strokes does 烤 have?
烤 is written with 10 strokes. The correct stroke order matters for recognition and handwriting speed — practice with the animated guide above to build proper technique.
What is the radical of 烤?
The radical associated with 烤 is 火 (fire). This radical appears in many characters related to fire.
What are the components of 烤?
烤 is composed of: 火 (semantic), 考 (phonetic). Its IDS decomposition is ⿰火考 with a left-right layout. Understanding the components helps with both memorization and recognizing related characters.
What are common words containing 烤?
Common words with 烤 include: 烤肉 (kǎo ròu, "to barbecue meat"); 烧烤 (shāo kǎo, "barbecue"); 烤箱 (kǎo xiāng, "oven"); 烤炉 (kǎo lú, "oven"); 烘烤 (hōng kǎo, "to roast"). There are over 33 compound words containing this character.
What characters sound the same as 烤 (kǎo)?
Several characters share the pronunciation kǎo: 考 (to beat), 靠 (to lean against or on). Context and tones help distinguish between them in speech and writing.
Is 烤 the same in simplified and traditional Chinese?
Yes, 烤 is written the same way in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Practice writing with real-time feedback

Trace stroke sequences, hear native pronunciation, and build lasting retention with spaced repetition in the HanziFeed app.

Character data sourced from Unihan (Unicode Consortium), SUBTLEX-CH frequency corpus (Cai & Brysbaert, 2010), and Make Me a Hanzi (stroke data). Collocation strength measured via NPMI (Normalized Pointwise Mutual Information). Verified by the HanziFeed linguistics team.

HSK classification follows the HSK 3.0 Standard (Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC, 2022 revision). Idiom data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Data last verified: March 2026.